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Growing‐season length and soil microbes influence the performance of a generalist bunchgrass beyond its current range
Author(s) -
Bueno de Mesquita Clifton P.,
Sartwell Samuel A.,
Schmidt Steven K.,
Suding Katharine N.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.144
H-Index - 294
eISSN - 1939-9170
pISSN - 0012-9658
DOI - 10.1002/ecy.3095
Subject(s) - tussock , growing season , soil water , ecology , abiotic component , biology , generalist and specialist species , plant community , microbial population biology , agronomy , environmental science , habitat , ecological succession , genetics , bacteria
Abstract As organisms shift their geographic distributions in response to climate change, biotic interactions have emerged as an important factor driving the rate and success of range expansions. Plant–microbe interactions are an understudied but potentially important factor governing plant range shifts. We studied the distribution and function of microbes present in high‐elevation unvegetated soils, areas that plants are colonizing as climate warms, snow melts earlier, and the summer growing season lengthens. Using a manipulative snowpack and microbial inoculation transplant experiment, we tested the hypothesis that growing‐season length and microbial community composition interact to control plant elevational range shifts. We predicted that a lengthening growing season combined with dispersal to patches of soils with more mutualistic microbes and fewer pathogenic microbes would facilitate plant survival and growth in previously unvegetated areas. We identified negative effects on survival of the common alpine bunchgrass Deschampsia cespitosa in both short and long growing seasons, suggesting an optimal growing‐season length for plant survival in this system that balances time for growth with soil moisture levels. Importantly, growing‐season length and microbes interacted to affect plant survival and growth, such that microbial community composition increased in importance in suboptimal growing‐season lengths. Further, plants grown with microbes from unvegetated soils grew as well or better than plants grown with microbes from vegetated soils. These results suggest that the rate and spatial extent of plant colonization of unvegetated soils in mountainous areas experiencing climate change could depend on both growing‐season length and soil microbial community composition, with microbes potentially playing more important roles as growing seasons lengthen.